


I Will Stay Upon Your Shoreland

by Meddalarksen



Series: Urban Magic AU [2]
Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Off-screen and in the past, Pre-Slash, selkie!Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-03-09 15:42:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13484640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meddalarksen/pseuds/Meddalarksen
Summary: "Tell me, is that how you learned to be one of them? By learning to care how your actions seemed in the eyes of another?""...I'm not sure I am one of them."American magic and mythology are very different from what exist in the UK, but gifts that mean something more than it appears to the naked eye exist in bothorthe time Sherlock gave Marcus a winter coat.





	I Will Stay Upon Your Shoreland

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first foray into this fandom and I admit I'm only about halfway through season 2 though I've watched bits and pieces further on. This is completely canon non-compliant and is fairly vague about when it's even based, I know it's after season 1 but *shrugs* hell if I know beyond that.
> 
> Title from Heather Dales "The Maiden and the Selkie"
> 
> Edit 2/20/18: So I've finally settled on this being the Christmas of season 2. It means a few minor tweaks to the show timeline, namely that instead of going with air dates for when Marcus gets shot I'm shifting that back by, idk a month or so so that this takes place _before_ that instead of after.

Marcus Bell looked up when a large white box with a dark blue ribbon around it was dropped on top of the case file he had open on his desk, there were a few marks to it that indicated ghosts or rituals which always made for a mess. "Holmes?”

Sherlock stood there, offering a sharp nod, “Merry Christmas, Detective. I thought it appropriate to offer you a sign of the esteem in which I hold you.”

Reaching carefully to untie the bow, Joan’s stories and his own experience led Marcus to expect anything could be in the box. What greeted him when he lifted the lid was almost innocent. A dark blue wool coat lay folded neatly in tissue paper and he cast a brief glance toward where Sherlock was nearly vibrating with repressed energy.

Lifting the coat out and shaking it once, Marcus blinked at the weight, carefully undoing the buttons and staring. The inside of the body of the coat was lined with a thick, soft brown fur, though it stopped and gave way to a different sort of, thinner, fur in the sleeves. “Holmes, this…this is a lot.”

“Not at all. I hold you in high regard, Detective. Your insights are enlightening and never unwelcome, consider this a small token. The winters have gotten colder and your coat has grown thin in places,” Holmes said as though Marcus wasn’t holding something he was pretty sure would cost more than he made in six months. “Well, try it on. I had to estimate for the tailor.”

Marcus carefully slipped the coat on and it felt like safety and confidence and some things that were just too big to put words to. He never wanted to take it off. Which he recognized as a sign that his mother always told him meant the thing needed to come off as quick as he could get it away, but he’d seen the loosening of tension around Sherlock’s eyes when he had put it on, like it meant something more than he had said. He carefully took the coat off, folding it back into the box, “Perfect fit. Thank you, Holmes.” He bit back the urge to ask if Sherlock was making sure everyone got ‘signs of his esteem’ this year.

Sherlock nodded once, “You’re welcome, Detective. I hope it serves you well.” Before Marcus could say anything in reply he was gone again.

Setting the gift aside, Marcus wrote himself a note to do some research into what exactly magic over in the UK looked like. Around New York it wasn’t…like that and usually relied more on ghosts which were cold or got mixed up in so many things it was a muddle.

o-o-o

Sherlock arrived home and managed to close himself in his room before Joan got home from whatever holiday shopping she had said she was doing. He would never admit it out loud but he had only been paying half attention to it and couldn’t remember what she had said on his way out the door. He had actually done it. He hadn’t been sure he would until the moment he set the box on Marcus’ desk. Sitting down on his bed he unwrapped the brown paper parcel he had gotten when he’d gone to pick up the coat from the tailor.

Pulling the paper away he ran his hand over the scraps of fur that were still there, probably enough to line gloves, but still probably bulkier than Marcus would wear and what the _hell_  had he been thinking. He had given the pelt to be cut up, to be sewn into a coat to be given to someone who would have no idea what it meant. Sherlock certainly wouldn’t be explaining how he came to have a sealskin in his possession.

He was going to be sick.

He hadn’t even considered this with Irene. It had never even crossed his mind. Unbidden his memory caught on the day his mother had sat him down and explained about the pelts. She had apologized to him that her blood ran true enough that either he or Mycroft had gotten it and the luck of the draw had meant it was him, while Mycroft gained the Holmes side’s propensity for magic of a more human variety.

She had told him that the heart could lie, that the gifting of a pelt was never to be done lightly because it could never be taken back. To give your pelt meant you were denying yourself the chance of freedom and they always loved as deeply as the seas that she had come from. It was both a blessing and a curse, but he already knew that part. She had admonished him to keep his pelt until he was sure the person he gave it to deserved both that sacrifice and the loyalty that came with it and would repay it without a broken Trust.

Sherlock had promised but hadn’t realized what the look in her eye meant until she’d been found in a saltwater bath with a wound in her wrist and, scattered around the room, shreds of pelt that looked nearly identical to the ones he was holding.

A selkie’s love if given is a powerful thing, but their Trust when broken cannot be mended. Sherlock could admit to himself that in the first few months after Moriarty revealed herself that he had been afraid of going like his mother had from the broken trust.

He knew the difference now. The moment Marcus had put the coat on, had accepted the gift freely given, Sherlock had felt the magic in the pelt take and knew that it would take a lot for him to come back from a betrayal in this situation.

He looked up when he heard the front door of the brownstone open. Folding the brown paper package again he set it on top of his dresser and made his way into the kitchen, putting the kettle on in the interest of pretending he hadn’t just spent god knew how long staring at useless scraps of fur.

o-o-o

Marcus wasn’t sure exactly _how_  he felt when he knocked on the door of the brownstone. He offered Joan a brief hello as he stepped inside and made his way to where he could hear movement which he assumed was Sherlock. Sure enough, the detective was at the table in the middle of the room, papers scattered around.

As he dropped the relevant book on top of what Sherlock was looking at, Marcus felt anger starting to win the battle with frustration and confusion, “When you basically propose to someone it’s usually assumed you’ve at least been dating. And you don’t do it in a way that they don’t know it’s happening.”

Sherlock stared at the book for a full minute before he looked at Marcus, “I didn’t give you a ring. I gave you a coat.”

Marcus pointed at the book, _Traditions and Magics of the Celtic Fae_ , the box he was carrying still under his arm, “You gave me your coat. At least that’s what I’m guessing since I have no idea what exactly that fur is.”

“It’s not a proposal. It’s a--”

“Sign of your esteem, yeah you said that,” Marcus replied, hearing the front door closing which he took to mean Joan was leaving to give them time to figure this out. He kind of wished he could go with her, it would be easier. “So, rule around my house was never ask what someone is, but I think I kinda need to know that now. And what this all means.”

“My mother was a selkie, my father comes from a long line of mages,” Sherlock answered as though it didn’t matter at all.

“A selkie. So you, what, had your skin chopped up to give to me?” Marcus asked, reaching for the book again only for Sherlock to snatch it up so he couldn’t.

“You make it sound like I flayed myself for a gift,” Sherlock said, setting the book out of reach and then turning back to whatever he had been doing before.

“Didn’t you? Holmes, we don’t have fairies around here, or if we do they’re rare. I’m going in blind here. You gave me your pelt right?” When he finally got a brief nod, Marcus considered his next question carefully, “I didn’t think that happened. I mean, all the old stories talk about pelts being stolen and it being awful.”

“That doesn’t happen much,” Sherlock said. “Most selkies choose who has their pelt if it’s someone other than them. The thefts haven’t been common for centuries, and if it’s found out that someone has done so, well there are legal recourses now.”

“You still haven’t said what it means. You did say you didn’t propose, but…”

Sherlock made a quiet sound of frustration that was just familiar enough that Marcus relaxed. It was the ‘I didn’t think I would have to explain this and I don’t really want to but because I don’t mind you I’ll do it’ sound that seemed to show up a lot on some cases, “That’s because I didn’t. We’ve never looked into that sort of relationship and we have an amicable professional arrangement that I believe works very well for both of us, but I wished to give this to you and everything I said to you is true. You are a valued part of what I do, Detective, and my work would be less for your absence.

“The gift of a pelt has far more to do with Trust--” that was an intimidating word when you could hear the capital letter “--than with anything so common as romantic affection.” There was a pause and Marcus tried to gather up what he was thinking even as he set the box down on the table. Sherlock fell completely still, which Marcus had seen rarely enough that he could count it on one hand and have fingers left over. “I feel I should tell you that returning the pelt will serve no purpose. It has no effect on me once it’s been cut.”

“No,” Marcus said carefully, keeping one hand on top of the box. “No I don’t want to return it, but I want to know what it means for us.”

“Nothing new,” Sherlock said, bringing his gaze up again. “It doesn’t have to change anything.”

“What if I want it to?” Marcus asked and saw a softening at the corners of Sherlock’s eyes.

“I am not someone who is easy to get along with. I don’t like people, Detective. I’m not a nice person,” Sherlock said.

“You know, shockingly I figured that out for myself,” Marcus said. “Doesn’t change things. So, can we try?”

The look in Sherlock’s eyes changed and it was so unusual that Marcus almost missed what he was saying as he tried to decipher it, “It’s not so easy as that. If we pursue this there are rules that have to be met by both of us.”

Fear. That was what that look was and it gave Marcus pause, “Coffee? It’ll give us time to talk about those, to figure things out and if it doesn’t work we go back to, well to us, no harm no foul.”

“You keep the coat,” Sherlock said, his voice final. “No matter the result.”

Marcus looked at him and then nodded, “I keep the coat. Now, can I have the book back? I gotta return that to the library.”

“It’s useless anyway,” Sherlock said, handing it over. “I’ve better ones on hand, I’ll…bring them to coffee.”

Marcus smiled at that, “Saturday. Barring any cases?”

Sherlock nodded, “Saturday.”

Marcus picked up the box and put both it and the book under his arm again, fairly sure he didn’t imagine the tension leaving Sherlock’s shoulders and a small smile on the other man’s face as he left. It looked like he had some things to figure out, including the right questions to ask on Saturday.


End file.
